


Pick

by chibiVeneficus



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Dermatillomania, Gen, One Shot, Trichotillomania
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-14
Updated: 2015-01-14
Packaged: 2018-03-07 12:38:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3173962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chibiVeneficus/pseuds/chibiVeneficus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ambulon's peeling paint isn't just from poor maintenance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pick

**Author's Note:**

> A stress drabble that I actually managed to complete \o/ Unbetaed.

**Verse:** IDW MTMTE  
 **Word count:** 497  
 **Contains:** Stressed Ambulon, Dermatillomania/Trichotillomania (obsessive skin picking/hair pulling)

 

Ambulon blearily stares up at the ceiling, tracing the well-known panels with the glow of his optics. He should be in recharge but thoughts keep running, running through his brain module; inventory, schedules, the way Pharma sneers at him, First Aid welcoming and kind but always discreetly staring at a patient’s badge…

Anxiety is an old friend that visits at night. It courses through his wires and makes his fingers itch with nervous energy. His joints tighten, his plating rattles, he feels as if his frame will crumple inward and also fly apart. It is a maddening sensation which feeds on itself, growing stronger as night ticks towards day. And when it feels like his spark can take no more, will collapse and fizzle out from stress, Ambulon feels for a crack and begins to pick.

The initial rush of relief is intoxicating. The invisible burden crushing down on him lightens with every searching scrape and, when he’s able to pry a fragment of bad paint off, it disappears altogether. His thumb rubs over the thin, rough surface and carefully plots out uneven edges, reverence in every swipe.

Relief is not long in staying. Anxiety creeps back as the paint chip is examined and settles in when it’s fully mapped. Ambulon flicks it onto the floor with the others when this happens and begins searching for another crack, another little fragment of hidden peace.

He has always had this habit though it has not always been this well managed. His gestalt - Ambulon drops an unexplored paint chip and immediately starts scratching for another as his thoughts turn towards them - his gestalt had been determined to get him to stop, to heal. Funny in a sad way considering that he was the medic of their assembled group. They had stripped and correctly redone his mutilated paint after sanding away the scratch marks, worked with him to turn his restless fingers toward safer habits, celebrated every orn his finish went unscratched. They had been _good_ for him. But then -

A strip of bad paint is roughly pulled off, examined, discarded. Ambulon lets his fingers linger on the revealed patch of blue, soothing tingling sensors.

When Ambulon had first arrived at Delphi, First Aid had asked him why he chose to paint over his original colors instead of stripping them off and correctly redoing them. Ambulon launched into a well rehearsed spiel of there not being enough time or supplies to justify a full repaint. First Aid had seemed skeptical but thankfully hadn’t press the issue. In truth, Ambulon couldn’t trust himself to not go back to gouging out chucks of paint now that he no longer had his gestalt to keep his hands in check. The badly cured top coat of Autobot colors was his promise and his shield now from his ever itching fingers.

Another piece of paint peels away, another brief respite from worry, and Ambulon methodically repeats the ritual until he finally calms enough to recharge.


End file.
